Disgraced Autonomy finance chief banned from profession for another 14 years

The former finance chief of Autonomy has been banned from the chartered accountancy profession in England and Wales for another 14 years and ordered to pay £450,000 in costs, six years after being convicted of fraud and jailed.

Sushovan Hussain would not be able to rejoin the profession until November 2038, according to a ruling from the Financial Reporting Council, which amounts to a 20-year ban after including the six years suspension since his conviction in the United States.

In 2018 Hussain pleaded guilty to 16 charges of fraud relating to his conduct at Autonomy Corporation, the UK software group bought by Hewlett Packard in 2011 in an $11 billion deal that was later to explode into recriminations and accusations of false accounting.

Mike Lynch, Autonomy’s founder, was acquitted of fraud in the US last month after being extradited to face charges that he schemed to inflate the value of Autonomy. On the stand, he said he had focused on technology and entrusted money matters and certain accounting decisions to Hussain.

Having failed to appeal against his conviction, Hussain has accepted that his US sentence amounted to evidence of misconduct and has paid £450,000 towards the costs of the investigation, the FRC’s executive counsel said.

He would not be fined further in the light of the $10 million penalty he was hit with at the time of his conviction in the US, the FRC added.

Hussain was suspended as a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales in November 2018 and will be barred for 20 years from that date, the FRC’s executive counsel said.

“The long period of exclusion reflects the seriousness of the misconduct as evidenced by the fraud offences under the US criminal conviction. The misconduct seriously undermines public confidence in the standards of conduct of members and has brought discredit to the accountancy profession,” it said.

It said it was relying on the US conviction as evidence of misconduct and it was not in the public interest for its own disciplinary tribunal to decide because of the “significant overlap of subject matter”.

Deloitte, Autonomy’s former auditor, was fined £15 million and two of its former partners were ordered to pay £500,000 and £250,000 in 2021 under a previous FRC judgment.

HP wrote down the value Autonomy by $8.8 billion shortly after buying it, amid allegations that its revenues had been inflated before the transaction.

Lynch and Hussain have separately been found liable in a civil case with the UK High Court yet to rule on any damages.

Hussain, who is 60 and was released from jail in January, declined to comment.